There’s a lot of chatter about changing the video-game industry to attract a more diverse audience. But Toronto developer Mare Sheppard – - co-founder of Toronto indie game company Metanet Software and co-creator of the award-winning game N — says gamers are plenty diverse already.

It’s the industry, she says, that does not reflect that diversity.

That’s one of the reasons why Sheppard, along with comics artist/game maker Jim Munroe, founded the Difference Engine Initiative, a project that “aims to diversify what kind of videogames are made” by “introducing new gamemakers from under-represented groups into our community.”

They held their first session, a gamemaking incubator for women in Toronto in July, and you can play the fruits of that labour online here.

I chatted with Sheppard about diversity in gaming and the Difference Engine Initiative.

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